So now let's talk about donor recognition. Donor recognition is the part of stewardship that most people think encompasses it all. We've talked about two of the most important pillars; acknowledgments and compliance, and gift acceptance and management. Those are all those behind the scenes thing that people don't really even realize happen in a stewardship shop. What people think of when they think of stewardship or donor relations, they think of this forward-thinking stuff, the forward facing stuff which is Events. For example, we have events all the time; groundbreaking, dedications, even fundraising events. We do events that are visibly let us invite our donors in, let us tell them stories about how we're using their gift, let them meet some of the people who are benefiting from their dollars. They can be everything from small tours of the medical facility to big galas that are showcasing every single bit of what is great about your institution or organization. It can involve some of the donors as part of the program or they can sit there as guests and just be there and be with other people like them who have chosen to support your charity. So these are really forward out facing events that create a lot of buzz and a lot of energy. And I think the really critical part of having great stewardship is making people feel really appreciated. Another way we can recognize donors is by having them become a member of a special giving society. Giving societies are put together with donors of like size or they donate in a similar way. So for example, annual donors. Annual donors give year after year and we can lump all of these folks into a particular giving society and honor them, and recognize them in the same way. So we have a 200 or 300 people every year who give these gifts of a certain size. And we can host special events for them, we can send special reports to them, we can invite them on behind the scenes tours. We offer benefits to them for their loyalty of giving. Other types of giving societies are planned giving society. So someone who has left money in their will to your organization. These are really critical giving societies because these folks make a gift or a commitment to you maybe 10,15, 20 years before they will ever leave this world. So, how do you keep them engaged for the next 15 to 20 years? You don't want to lose sight of them because they're donors. But they are a donor in a special way, I mean in the ultimate way. So often having events and special correspondence and information that goes to them is a really great way to keep that group of donors engaged. Another giving society is lifetime giving. This is honoring donors who cumulatively over the course of their life, continue to give, and give, and give, and then they reach this really high threshold. At UC Davis, I can tell you our threshold starts at $50,000 and goes all the way up to $10 million plus. So there's giving levels. And with each giving level that they become a member of, there's added benefits. The higher you give the more intricate the benefit might be. This is a really wonderful way to take a group or collect a group of people who are committed to your organization and honor them and continue to keep them in your fold, keep them cultivated, keep them engaged, keep them as close as possible to you. So giving societies is a really marvelous way to recognize your donors. The other thing to think about with donor recognition are public displays. This would be anything from a wall in the middle of the hospital that thanks all of the donors who gave a gift to create that new pediatric wing, to the name on the top of the building, that says that they've given enough money that their name is the name of the building now. And it can be as simple as putting something on your website that lists all the donors who consecutively give every year. It can be on your website. You can publish something and send it out. It's just a way to demonstrate an honor, "Hey, we know who you are. We know what you're doing. We know you're either a longtime donor or consecutive donor, a planned giving donor. We know who you are and what you do and we honor you." And we do it in a public way, either on a wall, in a book, on our website. So it's another really great way to manage recognizing donors. So the fourth pillar of donor relations is reporting. And reporting I believe can be where the most creative and personal stewardship can really happen. Donors really, really want to know how their gift was utilized. It's super important to them. They also want to know that they've made an impact, that their gift did something great and they want to know what that is. They created a scholarship, they'd really love to meet the scholarship recipient. If they gave enough money to build a lecture hall, they want to see what's happening in that lecture hall. If they gave enough money to sponsor an event, having them at the event and seeing all of the great that's happen at that event, is a really wonderful way to demonstrate that. I think reporting is something we just really need to think about and need to be as creative as possible about. It's also a really important thing to be able to share, that we know that we accepted your gift and we are managing your gift the way you asked us to. So it's a really great way to be completely transparent. We know that your gift was intended to go to our College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and this is what it's doing and how it's being done. One of my favorite donors said to me, "Angie really, I think stewardship can be broken down into two things. People want to know, donors want to know, where did the gift go and what good did it do?" And I think if you think about that from a reporting standpoint, if you can answer those two questions in any kind of a report, I think then you're hitting it out of the ballpark for our donors. It's a really wonderful way reporting is to continue to engage and inform our donors and tell them more about what they're doing. When I dedicated a really neat building at Midwest university, I literally had thousands of donors who gave to this building. And after the building was dedicated, I wanted to do something one year after. And I sent a report to everyone that gave to that building. And it was a report from the building and it talked about here's how many classes happened in here, and here are the kind of learning that happened, and here are the number of museum exhibits that came in and out, these are the number of visitors and people loved it. I sent photos and images and it was an e-mail. And It went out to thousands of people. And it was just a way to honor the people that gave that gift and then just let them know that that building now is doing such great things on this campus. So your reports can be as general or as specific, as personal as possible. There's just unlimited ways to do it. Right now people are doing lots of reporting using video. We had a donor recently, unfortunately who was very, very critically ill and she wanted to meet her scholarship recipients. She set up a million-dollar program for a study abroad, so kids could get the opportunity to study abroad. She was critically ill. So we pulled five of the kids together and with my iPad I interviewed them, saying thank you to her and talking about their experience. We put it together in a little iMovie and then our chancellor went down to visit with her before she passed away, and she got to see this video. And at the end of her life, she got to see what her gift was done. It took me an hour of my time and a really smart assistant who could do the iMovie, and we put together a report that made the difference. And let me tell you what happened on the back end. On the back end, she was so moved by that, she left $5 million more to the university to create a recital hall because she knew that that was something we really needed. So reporting back can be a really wonderful tool to engage someone for sure, but it also can set people up for the next big gift. So reporting is really critical. One more thing that I want to talk about related to donor relations and stewardship is, I think we need to take the time to get to know our donors. What is the thing that's going to motivate them? What are their expectations? Penelope Burke, I talked about her earlier, she wrote this book called Donor-Centered Fundraising. Well, she actually sat down and talked to donors to find out what it is that they wanted or expected. I would encourage us as professionals to do that with our donors all the time. Try to find out what their expectations are. I think that they're different. I worked in two parts of the country. And I can tell you in the Midwest what donors want and expect from their organizations are completely different than what they expect out here in the West. So I think it's incumbent upon us to really get to know who they are and try to understand that, and then be able to honor that. How do they like to be recognized? Do they like public recognition? Do they not like public recognition? There's all kinds of ways to to know that and then be able to steward people based on that. What are the benefits that are going to be most important to them? We just revamped our giving society at UC Davis and we surveyed our donors. And said, what's meaningful, this or this? This or this? And from there, I was able to create a list of benefits that I knew were meaningful to my current donors. Also, if you send out new things or your are trying new things, if you put together a new report that you've never done before, send a little survey along. Ask the donors, did you like it? What didn't you like about it? We want to make sure to create the strongest relationships that we possibly can. And the only way to do that, is to really, really really know our donors. So take the time to get to know them. Find out what's meaningful to them. Did they have fun at that last event? Would they like to see something different? These are the things that I think if we take the time to know that we'll just be even better at building a really strong donor relations program. So I hope at the end of listening to everything that I've had to tell you or share with you about stewardship and donor relations, that maybe you're just a little bit more passionate about what it is, and why I love stewardship. I believe it to be one of the most critical pieces of a strong development program. If we can thank a donor well, they're going to keep giving. It's just like marketing. It's easier to keep a donor than it is to go back and find another one. If you think of donor relations as one of the critical pieces of the job and operation, I think that you'll be all set. Remember what my favorite donor said to me, "It's kind of simple and drilled all the way down to two things. Make sure you can answer; where did the money go? And what good did it do?" And I think if you can do that, you have a really good effort in donor relations.
